The Sunday, July 22, 2018 print edition of the Shelby Star; front page above the fold article titled “Who should choose?” can only be described as the first serious partisan shot of the 2018 Election season in Cleveland County. The article was full of half truths, lies and deceptions with the obvious target being Speaker of the House Tim Moore and on behalf of his opponent, Kings Mountain Democrat David Brinkley.
This is how the article went:
First there was this big picture of a female student in the halls of Cleveland Community College. Below that there is a much smaller picture of Speaker of the House Tim Moore, representing the NC 111 District in the NC House, who is also the Cleveland County Attorney.
The Star article, most likely a joint Press Release from the School Board and County Commissioners, describe and insinuate how the NC General Assembly speedily and secretly just passed House Bill 12 and blindsided the School board AND the Commissioners. House Bill 12 changes the way Cleveland Community College Board of Trustees are appointed.. Commissioners appoint eight and the General Assembly appoints four.
At the end of this article we have included a copy of House Bill 12 as well as the Legislative History of HB 12. HB 12 was anything but speedily and secretly passed. The bill was filed January 25, 2017. Discussed, debated on, amended many times before final ratification on June 21, 2018. All in public and all documented in a seventeen month process. Hardly speedy and hardly secret.
Yet, according to the Star article, School Board Chairman Shearra Miller and Commissioners Susan Allen and Eddie Holbrook claim they were “blindsided” and didn’t know anything about the bill and what it did until after it was passed. This lie is especially egregious for Commissioner Eddie Holbrook as his position at Cleveland Community College is Senior Dean of Development and Governmental Relations. At a hefty pay of $162,500 at that. To say that, although this HB 12 affected his office as both Chairman of the County Commissioners and Senior Dean at CCC , he was blindsided is beyond belief. It is beyond belief and such a claim is clearly a big lie.
Holbrook also said none of the other Commissioners knew about HB 12 as did School Board Chairman Shearra Miller. Another big lie.
Both Miller and Holbrook had the School Board and Commissioners make an early appointments before the bill was ratified to get the appointments in under the old law. If you scroll back to my article published June 17, 2018, before HB 12 was ratified, you will see the article regarding the Commissioner’s split vote regarding their CCC Appointment. Some on the Commission wanted to re-appoint Wes Westmoreland and some wanted to re-appoint Wayne King to the CCC BoT. The Commissioners only had one appointment at that time. By the next meeting everything was worked out behind closed doors. The Commissioners would re-appoint Wes Westmoreland and the General Assembly would re-appoint Wayne King. And they did. The Commissioners with a 5-0 vote. They all got what they wanted because of HB 12 and now they claim not to have known anything about it. Although County Attorney Tim Moore is also Speaker of the House.
And between the June 17, 2018 article that I did, Political Smackdown did a show and I wrote several other articles regarding HB 12 before the Star came out with their late and phony article. Check it out.
Now, enough about the phony Star article. Something else and much bigger is going on.
Some facts:
The Star, by their July 22, 2018 article, was writing about old news. The Star usually misses “new” news, so something fishy is going on.
Tim Moore as NC District 111 Representative and Speaker of the House has “brought home the bacon” for Cleveland County. Mostly in the form of grants that have often gone to Cleveland County Schools as well as Cleveland Community College.
When Tim Moore was selected as the new County Attorney amid the controversy of the Commissioners firing the previous County Attorney, besides being First Cousin-once removed, from Commissioner Jason Falls, Commissioner Eddie Holbrook made the statement that Tim was hired to create a link between Cleveland County and Raleigh.
Tim Moore, Kelly Hastings and the General Assembly have taken it upon themselves to fight the “crisis” in Education,” not only in Cleveland County but across the whole state of North Carolina. The General Assembly is “tinkering,” rightly, through legislation, to force school systems to find ways to improve their performance in educating students, requiring teacher performance be improved, moving away from the old tenure system, etc. that has ruffled feathers at CCS, CCC as well as the State School and Community College Boards.
There is major resistance, always, when those on gravy trains are finally forced to go to work. To produce. Certain factions in Kings Mountain, Shelby, CCS, CCC and even the Commissioners, now that it is Election time, see the opportunity to replace Tim Moore with a Democrat. David Brinkley. A well to do businessman from Kings Mountain who is known to raise money for school athletics. Kings Mountain only school athletics.
As I think about this resistance, I have come to realize that the recent anonymous tips sent to me had hidden motives. The allegations of large profits from the “flipping” of a bankrupt chicken processing plant in Asheboro as well as the purchase of a luxury condo in Raleigh by Tim Moore was somehow sleazy, unethical and illegal. Of course I looked into these allegations, dug deep and found nothing to them. And wrote articles saying so.
Now, this phony “old news” article in the Star pops up from nowhere. Of course I had looked at HB 12 weeks ago and concluded that the CCC BoT appointments were major factors in the continuing scandals at CCC and this was a good way to solve them. That is if a better grade of Commissioners are voted into office this year as well as in 2020..
As soon as I heard about the Star article I smelled a rat. A democrat rat linked to the David Brinkley Campaign against Tim Moore. Maybe not an official part of the Brinkley Campaign staff, but a dirty trick faction very similar to the Eddie Holbrook Re-Election Campaign and probably many of the same people in both campaigns.